Pricing differences for all tech products in Aus have been a long running issue here. Our current Minister for Innovation, Ed Husic, actually campaigned and held an inquiry on it back when I was reporting tech in 2013-14.
However, Australians do generally earn more than other countries. Using the US as a comparison: Our current minimum wage is around the A$23 (USD $15) per hour mark -- over double the US minimum wage US$ 7 minimum wage.
There's pricing theory that you essentially price what the market will pay, and we can afford to pay more. (Which is the weird backward explanation I got in 2014!)
But regardless, its unusual that there's still such a discrepancy between online and retail, which is what I was driving at. Still unsure as to why that's the case.
Thanks. I'm mainly curious because in my country, physical sales took a big knock when Steam introduced regional pricing. But since the currency here is weak against the USD and Euro, games were typically very expensive. So, when regional pricing became available for PC games, many people started buying digital because it was much cheaper.
My guess is that Australian physical sales are still strong because digital pricing isn't under-cutting that market and physical copies are not much more expensive than digital versions.
Does Steam in Australia have regional pricing?
Awesome question. Wanted to give you a good response so did some digging.
The latest I could find is that it does: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/11/after-steam-enabled-the-aussie-dollar-some-games-quietly-became-more-expensive/
Pricing differences for all tech products in Aus have been a long running issue here. Our current Minister for Innovation, Ed Husic, actually campaigned and held an inquiry on it back when I was reporting tech in 2013-14.
However, Australians do generally earn more than other countries. Using the US as a comparison: Our current minimum wage is around the A$23 (USD $15) per hour mark -- over double the US minimum wage US$ 7 minimum wage.
There's pricing theory that you essentially price what the market will pay, and we can afford to pay more. (Which is the weird backward explanation I got in 2014!)
But regardless, its unusual that there's still such a discrepancy between online and retail, which is what I was driving at. Still unsure as to why that's the case.
Thanks. I'm mainly curious because in my country, physical sales took a big knock when Steam introduced regional pricing. But since the currency here is weak against the USD and Euro, games were typically very expensive. So, when regional pricing became available for PC games, many people started buying digital because it was much cheaper.
My guess is that Australian physical sales are still strong because digital pricing isn't under-cutting that market and physical copies are not much more expensive than digital versions.
I think it varies by the game, with new releases generally being the most expensive.
PC Games here are typically cheaper than console. But I'm a console gamer, so I'm stretching the limits of my knowledge here.
When I come across a PC gamer, I'll ask.